Sony BMG, one of the 3 (should we still count EMI too?) major labels plans music flaterate

according to some newspapers and blogs like this

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/3/sony_bmg_planning_subscription_service_aapl_

Sony plans a musicflaterate. The advantage of a single major label compared to napster is zero. Also a lot of other memers of the channel like Nokia try to offer flaterates for music. One advantage of the major is the bigger supplier power but one big disadvantage is the smaller product portfolio. The major already tried to offer music online stores years ago. But when the user do not know which artist is at which label this will not work. Only a holistic approach of all big vendors together could work. But a lot of players like Amazon or iTunes will compete against each others. Perhaps this announcement is only going to put pressure on iTunes because Sony threaten to go forward with other vendors but without Apple if Apple not support what the music labels want. I will still become a  exciting year for the music industry. They are going to attack each other not only on horizontal but also on vertical battlefields. The advantage has the consumer in the end. If the younger generation pay money for music in future is exciting because he never paid before. There will definitely a battle between the flaterate and the advertisment model in the end and some niches in between – nobody could know this in these days when all players change their strategy and play around with every possibility